


sehnsucht

by siddals



Category: Harlots (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Post-Season/Series 02, Psychological Trauma, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 02:17:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15719889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siddals/pseuds/siddals
Summary: Charlotte doesn't quite settle into her new role.





	sehnsucht

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt sehnsucht, "‘the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what’; a high degree of intense, recurring, and often painful desire for something, particularly if there’s no hope to attain the desired or when its attainment is uncertain, still far away" on tumblr.

She never wanted to be a bawd.

For so long, she hadn’t truly wanted anything but the lack of some other. Some escape from each cage that had been crafted for her, a turn of a key, a door opening somewhere she could not fathom. Lydia Quigley had wanted an heir, a daughter to take up Golden Square once she was gone, but she is not sure her mother had wanted the same. Greek Street had always been Margaret’s. For Charlotte, her mother had wanted a contract, a stipend, a brief time in splendor and then careful living once her face grew too familiar to attract new keepers.

And for herself? She had no purpose, and then for a brief time she had. And now, with Lydia Quigley’s head smashed in by a rock as she languished in the pillory, she has none once more.

She did not want this house. For once, she and her mother, on some distant shore, must be united in what they do not want.

William helps her with the books and numbers. Charlotte has never been adept with such things, with facts and figures, always grew bored too easily with her lessons, eager to find some game to attract herself. She does well enough with the pimping itself, with selling the charms of each girl to passing culls, as well as she had once done for herself. Occasionally, if a gentleman’s price is good enough, she even allows herself to be taken to one of the bedrooms. It was never the physical act, the simple grunting and groaning, that she had hated about her old life.

Jacob works the front of the house, ever the little actor. Sukey and Hannah are good enough girls, anxious to please but without the lifeless quality that Quigley had instilled in her own flock. Fanny Lambert remains, a bright smile to greet her gentlemen, though Charlotte can tell it does not reach her eyes. She takes only what she needs from them, to keep the house running, a smaller portion, she knows, than her mother did. She has two dresses, bright and jewel-like, but only two. She sells the wig she had left Quigley’s house in and by next spring, her hair has reached past her shoulders.

She shirks her duties to some extent, she knows, finds ways of escaping, losing herself in the taverns, in drink. There are nights full of blur, men who push into her, women who she works with her fingers as they sigh and groan. None of them leave a mark on her mind, none remain once the night is over. She drifts, much as she had before she found her purpose with Lydia Quigley.

The house is hardly recognizable to her from what she remembers, in those last days before George Howard had first come (”we’ll find you another keeper,” her mother had said, her mouth grim and set, “but you cannot drive this one away too.”). Emily is gone, mistress of her own house now. Kitty Carter is dead, killed by her sister’s once-keeper, and she wonders if justice can ever be enough to rectify that. And her mother too, is gone. Not hanged at least but sure to be so if she ever returns.

And then there is Lucy.

As with the old days, she does not work the culls, though she had tried to insist on doing so. Charlotte had forbidden it, when they had brought her home.  _You were too young_ , she’d said,  _you weren’t ready. Perhaps in time_. Lucy flits about the house, lifeless, with no purpose to put herself to. Lord Fallon’s estate had denied her her annuity, slithered their way out of it when he had been discovered with a slit throat on a London street, though no Wells woman had a thing to do with the crime. Still, Charlotte will not bring her culls, even if it helps their fortunes. She appears a shell of the girl she once was, and Charlotte does not know how to rectify it.

At night, Lucy curls beside her in bed, sharing as they did when they were small. Sometimes, she screams, and Charlotte strokes her hair, fetches her water, does what she can without questioning her.

One spring night, once she blows out the candle, Lucy speaks.

“Do you think she’s alive?”

“‘Course she’s alive,” Charlotte says softly, ghosting a hand across Lucy’s hair, “The Justice told us so, remember?”

“People die on convict ships all the time. I’ve heard it so. A fever breaks and all are gone.”

“Ma’s strong,” Charlotte assures her, “If the rest of life has not broken her, nor will this.”

She is not wholly convinced, and neither, she thinks is Lucy.

“What if we sold this house?” Charlotte asks, “And took off for some other shore? With Pa, and Jacob. Bet Fanny would make the proper bawd. Sukey’s got her letters. She could help her.”

Lucy wrinkles her nose.

“America’s ten times the size of here. We won’t find her.”

Charlotte takes a breath.

“We could, if we tried.”

“Don’t be stupid, Charlotte.”

This stings, for a moment.

“I didn’t say America. Perhaps we could leave it with Pa, and go some time, then come back. The continent. Perhaps Lady Isabella could show us a bit of luxury, in France.”

Isabella hides from her brother, in Paris, with her daughter and all the money she could spirit from his house. The standard of living, Charlotte knows, must be beneath what Isabella is used to, but she is hardly starving, and she is free.

“Lord Fallon wanted to take me to the continent. To the temples of Greece.” Her voice is brittle and hard.

Charlotte sighs.

“They were only notions.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Lucy says, “Too much has changed already. I want to keep a few things as they are.”

Charlotte nods, though in the dark she knows Lucy cannot see her.

“We don’t have to, sprat.” It is a slip of the tongue, born of tiredness. Lucy is no child, she knows, no longer, but sometimes it is easy to remember how young her face is, how short a time ago she was innocent of all of this.

“Don’t call me that,” Lucy says, with a sigh.

“I’m sorry.”

They remain silent, for a moment, in the dark. Lucy’s breathing is slow and steady.

“If I’d been different,” she finally says, “if I’d been better - if I’d made the Reptons want me, if I’d pleased Sir George better - “

“Don’t,” Charlotte says.

“It’s because of me things aren’t as they were,” Lucy says, “I brought Lord Fallon to this house. If I’d been more like you - Kitty might be here, Ma - “

“ _Don’t_.” Her voice is hard. “It wasn’t your fault. Not any of it.”

“I wanted to be good. Like you were.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, you know,” Charlotte says, “Sucking and fucking. Telling ‘em what they want to hear. It doesn’t make me better than you, or either of us better than any street girl. It’s a sham. It’s silks and pretty jewels, and a few well placed words and a bit of pintle-grabbing. Nothing more.”

There is a pause.

“If it doesn’t mean anything,” Lucy says, “why couldn’t I  _do_ it?”

She sighs.

“I never wanted this house, you know,” she says, after a moment, “Perhaps once you’ve had some time, it might be yours. You’ve always been clever, good with your figures. I could help you at first, and then you might play the bawd.”

“And what would you do?”

“Don’t know,” Charlotte says, “Be free?”

“Free to become like poor Mary Cooper,” Lucy says sharply, “I won’t see that.”

“How could I come to any bad end,” Charlotte asks, “when my sister is the arch-bawd of London?”

Lucy laughs, but with no mirth.

“Don’t know about that.”

“We don’t have to decide now,” Charlotte says, “our paths aren’t set for us yet.”

“Haven’t they always been?”

She does not quite know what to say to that. The silence goes on too long.

Charlotte lifts herself, bends over to kiss her sister’s cheek and falls back upon the bed. 

Sleep does not come for too long.


End file.
